Of Monsters and Magi
by cane-jian
Summary: Separated from his father and their allies at the very moment of their victory, Shirou Emiya is sent fleeing through the mountains of Germany, constantly perused by their enemy's. In an attempt to find a place to hide and recuperate, the young magus uncovers something far older, and far greater, than anything he has before encountered.
1. The Fall

**AN: Have you ever had a moment when you didn't know if you had really good luck, or really bad luck? I've been trying to summon Asagami Fujino in FGO for a while now, but thus far no dice. On the other hand, I have gotten the five star Saber Shiki, not once, not twice, but three times since I began.**

**I don't even particularly want Shiki, and I've been saving up for Arthur(Prototype) in a month or two, so if things go my way I won't particularly need another Saber . . . Still, I guess that I should be glad that I got the five star Saber, so I decided to finally get started on this idea I've had for a while now. Here's hoping I can actually maintain my momentum for once. **

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The sound of feet slamming into the gravel coated pathway sounded out like the beating of a jackhammer as Shirou Emiya tore down the hiking trail. The forest was beautiful, a lush green in all the glory of the German summer, but said beauty was lost on the boy as the leaves and shrubbery blurred together into a green mess thanks to the shear speed he was forced to move.

The only sound louder than his footfalls was the sound of his heartbeat hammering in his ears, each clench of the circulatory organ echoing in his ears like the pounding of a base drum.

Nonetheless, he could hear the sound of footfalls behind him, notably slower than his own, but also much heavier, and slowly getting closer to him. Fighting off the urge to look over his shoulder and see how close his pursuer was, Shirou put on an extra burst of speed, leg mussels staining as he pusher them to their limits.

As he ran, thoughts racing over all the stupid decisions that had gotten him here, he couldn't help but come to a simple conclusion: Entering Ebott City had been a monumental mistake.

_It had certainly seemed like a good idea, at first. Hide in the large crowds of the city, find a way to get back in contact with Kiritsugu or Conery, and go back home to Japan(or one of Kiritsugu's safe houses, that would be fine too)._

_But no, that had been his naivety talking. He had failed to take one simple detail into account, and that reality had ruined any chance he had of blending in._

_He was a red haired, amber eyed, Japanese kid in battered cameo clothing in alone in a city in north Germany without an escort and looking like he hadn't had a bath in weeks. He stood out like a sore thumb._

_And that was before accounting for how the entire city seemed to a have an obsession with his homeland! Honestly, everywhere he looked, there was some of anime or manga related merchandise. Dragon Ball action figures. Yu Yu Hakusho posters. Gundam. Evangelion. Cowboy Bebop. And that was just what he recognized at a glance, there were dozens more that he didn't recognize! Plastered on practically every street corner._

_Not to mention how every girl his age (or at least the ones that he had seen) were wearing the merchandise of the latest Magical Girl anime to come out riding Sailor Moon's wave, with cat ears plastered on practically anything pink! Wasn't anime supposed to be relatively unknown outside of Japan? Did these people not get the memo?_

_Ultimately, Shirou had been pulled aside by well over a dozen people to confirm that, yes, he was actually Japanese, and then have to try to cut the conversations as short as possible._

_At least he knew German rather well, or else things may have ended up worse. As it was he had to convince several adults that he was fine and he didn't need their help finding his parents and no he didn't need to go to the local station of the lost and found or the hospital, and no he didn't need to be in school!_

A low hanging branch smacking him across the face roused him from his recollections as he re focused on the trail ahead of him, which was starting to twist and turn as they went up the mountain.

_He had first noticed his stalkers while manoeuvring around a crowd of people handing out petitions, something about getting a new dump further from the river, when he caught a telltale flash of white hair in his peripheral vision._

_Say what you will about the Von Einzbern, their Homunculi's design was usually consistent, and anyone even passingly familiar with one would be able to recognize one on the spot. Shirou, meanwhile, had been outright studying them for years, and could even tell the individual models apart from a distance. He ran._

_While the model he had spotted in the crowd was a negotiator class Homunculus, made as a proxy to be sent to make deals with potential clients and such, it had had a bodyguard in the form of a combat model. Said combat model had quickly taken off after him, even as he felt a mass hypnosis spell go off behind him, likely to keep anyone from noticing the little boy being chased by an albino woman._

_He had rocketed through the streets, but soon found himself driven to the outskirts of town by flocks of familiars, where he took off down a hiking trail into the mountains. Luckily it seemed that the wire familiars couldn't get to far from their creator, and the combat model couldn't make them itself._

Shirou, seeing that he was approaching a rather sharp curve, began to skid his feet on the gravel to bleed off his momentum, the high quality combat boots Kiritsugu had gotten taking the punishment easily. The instant he reached the bend, he exploded back into motion, the feeling of fingers brushing through his hair making his heart rate double, if such a thing was possible.

Luckily, if the sound of breaking branches and disturbed leaves behind him was any indication, the Homunculus hadn't slowed down, and had thus run off the trail and into the thick foliage. Nevertheless, Shirou didn't slow down in the slightest, feet devouring the steep mountain trail like it was nothing, not daring to look back in case his enemy was still right behind him.

By the time he finally looked back, he had been running for nearly three minutes without sign of pursuit. Neither seeing, nor hearing any sign of his pursuer, he slowed to a near stop for a much needed breather, lungs heaving.

It was unlikely that he had lost his pursuers, seeing as how he had yet to leave the primary trail, but Shirou had already learned that combat Homunculi had a annoying tendency of going straight through the obstacles that he had to go around, so running through any forest too densely packed to avoid leaving a clear trail wasn't an option.

If the trees weren't as close together as they were, if the moss was less prevalent, or there was a chance to jump tree branch to tree branch, he would have taken the risk, but as it was, he'd just have to keep following the trail until he reached a spot were he could more easily sneak off.

Not for the first time since he was separated from his Father and their allies, he wished that he still had a few of the bird familiars that they had used for scouting on hand. An aerial view would make escaping vastly simpler, even just the ability to scout ahead before he had to be their physically would be invaluable.

Unfortunately he had lost the three familiars prepared for him during the raid, and he lacked the skill (not to mention time and materials) to make a familiar himself, at least at the moment.

Shirou continued his run down the path once he had caught his breath, albeit at a slower rate, taking a moment to reinforce his ears. As skilled as the Von Einzbern were at alchemy, their solution to most complex problems was "Throw more prana at it." When it came to battle, their Homunculi followed a similar methodology, trying to brute force their way through most obstructions in their path.

The idea that one of said artificial humans might try sneaking up on him, let alone be good enough to actually do it, was almost comical. And, sure enough, he heard their approach almost a full minute before they actually managed to catch up with him, enough time that he risked a glance over his shoulder as he ran.

Really, if the situation had been less serious, he would have laughed. The woman's headpiece had come off, and her hair was set in a rapidly failing bun, which was full of leaves, twigs and branches. Her dress, which had been a pristine white when he first saw it, was now covered in several layers of green stains from the leaves, and was torn is several places.

Of course the humour of the scene was rapidly lost when one took note of the subtly murderous look in her eyes(he hadn't known combat models were even capable of that much raw emotion!), or of the large rhenium halberd she was carrying in one hand. Shirou didn't know where they had hidden that monstrosity of a weapon when they were out in public earlier, but in the end it was of little relevance. She had it, and it was likely she knew how to use it.

'_If the Einzbern had armed their Homunculi with bolas instead of axes, they would have caught me already.'_ Shirou realized as he refocused on running. _'I need to get some countermeasures for tangling weapons soon.'_ he noted to himself.

It was about that time that he spotted a three meter tall, chain link fence with a barb-wire top up ahead. On the door meant to allow entry to the other side, next to the padlock, was a sign with big red letters. NO ENTRY. UNSTABLE GROUND BEYOND THIS POINT.

The path, upon reaching the gate, forked off at a ninety degree angle, and unless Shirou missed his guess, was leading back towards the city.

Of course, if he actually tried take the turn, he'd end up running TOWARDS the Homunculus following him, instead of away, and she'd probably just cut through the forest to get to him. So, with the only option to go straight, Shirou reinforced his legs as much as he dared under such short notice, and jumped.

It was an incredible leap, easily carrying him over the fence, with a good meter and a half between his feet and the barbed wire. Of course, he nearly ran into some branches, but managed to reach the ground with only a few leaves in the mouth for his trouble.

He was glad to see that the trees were beginning to clear up as he got further up the mountain, as he would soon be able to leave the beaten trail without fear of being slowed down by the foliage. He was less glad to hear his hunter smash her way through the fence behind him like it was made of tissue paper.

The chase continued for several more moments, Shirou making large jumps as the mountain became more steep and rocky the higher up they went, the Homunculus still in pursuit. Luckily for the young magus, the woman's footwear was not designed with rock climbing in mind, and she slid backwards constantly. Also in his favour was how her 15 kilo+ halberd made jumping extremely awkward, serving to slow her down even further.

Eventually, the young magus spotted a large cave in the distance. Again he lamented the lack of familiar's to scout ahead, as if the cave was dark enough, and had multiple branches he could use it to loose his pursuer. Especially if it had another exit else-wear on the mountain.

Entering a cave with no idea what was inside was foolish however, and instead of entering, he jumped over it unto the mountain slope above it and continued his forward charge, glancing over his shoulder to see that the Homunculus had been reduced to small speck of white in the distance behind him.

Said glance over his shoulder proved to be a mistake, as barely a second later he tripped over a root. Said root was right at the edge of a large hole into the mountain that he had missed earlier, due to the rocks around it being elevated enough to block it from view until he was right on top of it. Lacking any way to arrest his forward momentum, and he went stumbling into open air, crashed into the other side of the hole back-first, and falling into the abyss bellow before he could grab the side.

Immediately Shirou began to assess his situation. On one hand, he was confident that even if the fall was far enough that he reached terminal velocity, the worst could expect was bruised bones and/or torn tendons as long a he was properly reinforced. Maybe something might get dislocated if he landed wrong, but that was the worst of it.

Of course, being in an enclosed environment wasn't exactly the best idea when someone was hunting you down. And for all he knew, the bottom could be a bed of spikes!

Rotating upright mid air, Shirou projected a pair of mining picks, the stone-cleaving tools materializing into his hands from thin air in a blaze of blue-green light. Rearing his arm back, he prepared to stab the blade into the wall beside him. Hopefully, he could make it back up to the top before the Homunculus caught up with him. Who knew, maybe he could just wait in the hole then drag her down when she got to the edge.

It was not to be, however, as when Shirou had fallen twenty meters down, his circuits went haywire, turning on and off multiple times in an instant and producing so much heat that the boy was almost instantly lightheaded, going limp in the air. Colliding with the wall as he fell, his limp body bounced, and began to spin, until a second later when he slammed into the ground.

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**AN: Not exactly happy with this, I feel like the writing jumps around a bit, but overall passable I suppose. I guess I just need practice writing outside of the first person.**

**Also, a warning to the readers, my usual specialty when writing is self inserts, and while that won't be appearing in this fic, I still have a tendency to make a lot of OC's. I know not everyone like's OC's, so I figured I'd warn you here.**


	2. Concerning Circumstances

**AN: Alright, on to chapter 2 . . . lets hope I do better on this one. My third person leaves something to be desired at the moment. Hopefully it will improve when I get to more character dialogue . . . **

**Also, to those of you thrown off by the Metric(Read: Americans) sorry, I figured that since Shirou's Japanese I should use the system he's be using. The be honest I'm more comfortable with imperial to, so if you ask I'll can put the imperial measurements in brackets next to the metric in later chapters.**

**Also, I repeat my warning from the last chapter about my habit of using lot's of OC's. Shirou's going to reference a lot of no-canon character's this chapter, who won't be introduced for a while yet. Sorry if that bother's you.**

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Shirou groaned, head pounding as he slowly regained consciousness. His whole body felt uncomfortably warm, like he had a fever, and his prana circuits felt like they were vibrating inside of his body.

Shirou didn't move for several seconds, his mind feeling sluggish. Finally, he clenched his teeth and forced his eyes . . . only to immediately squeeze them shut again as the sun shone straight into them.

The young magus rolled unto his side, grabbing the sides of his head as the pounding increased. Between the pounding and his circuits throbbing, he decided to stay motionless until he felt a little better, and curled up on the ground, fighting of the drowsy feeling he was getting.

It was not to last, however, seeing as something slammed into the ground beside him with a loud _'smack'_! Instinct born from several years of getting sneak attacked while he was in bed kicked in, and he was on his feet roughly ten feet away in an instant, drowsiness forgotten under the influence of the adrenaline rush.

Almost immediately, he was hit by a wave of vertigo, but fought through it, putting his hands on his knees to remain balanced and his head spun.

It took a few seconds for the vertigo to clear up enough for Shirou to see what had disturbed him, during which he remained as on guard as he possibly could considering his current condition(Which admittedly, wasn't very much). Once the dizzy spell cleared up, he slowly opened his eye's, taking in his surroundings.

He was in a rather large cavern, roughly rectangular in shape, with several Greek-looking stone pillars scattered around it's edges. The floor had a thin coating of grass, and in the centre of the room was a large bed of golden flowers, that looked somewhat like fat buttercups.

But the thing that really caught his attention, was the white-clad body laying only a meter or two away from where he had been dozing a few seconds before. It seemed that same combat homunculus that had been following him for the majority of the morning was now laying rag-doled across the floor of the cavern, dull eye's staring seeming sightlessly at the cave ceiling.

Trying to take stalk of the situation, Shirou began to slowly walk a circle room, making sure to always keep the homunculus in his line of sight, while still getting a feal for the chamber's layout.

The chamber was roughly ten to fifteen meters across, and the pillars he had noticed earlier seemed to be strictly decorative in nature, seeing as they didn't actually hold anything up. He was unfamiliar with the kind of rock it was made of, however, which was a shade of what Shirou would consider dark lavender.

Of course, he supposed it could have been painted, but even the cracks showed the same purple colour, so it would have to have been painted recently.

In one corner of the room was a hallway, which appeared to have a doorway with some sort of symbol above it, but he couldn't seem make it out without getting closer due to the low light level.

Now having a potential escape route, the boy returned his full attention to the Homunculus with a frown.

He couldn't have been down the hole for more than three minutes for it have caught up so recently, and he was already feeling enough better that he could at least move, so assuming that the Homunculi would recover at a similar speed to himself, it would be a bad idea to stay in the same room as them.

On the other hand, the fact that they had fallen through a bounded field, and a rather exotic one at that, showed that wherever he was was most likely dangerous. Bounded fields don't go up by accident after all.

Meaing, it was quite possible that he was currently within the territory of some unknown magus, or had stumbled upon something that someone was trying to hide. Really, the best option would be to leave the same way he had come in, the hole.

Walking into the middle of the flower bed, he lood straight up the pit that had brought him their, judging it's height. It was a long way up, but not to far for him to throw a hook, as long as he didn't hit the walls.

Nodding to himself, he prepared to trace a rope-hook and make his escape . . .

. . . Except his circuits were still feeling . . . staticy, for lack of a better term, and said feeling turned into a painful electric shock when he tried to open them. Thus, he couldn't project anything, and he didn't have a hook anymore, having lost his a few days before.

Seeing as how he couldn't escape the hole for a while, and the tunnel was off limits until he had more Intel(if he ever did) the best option would be to tie up his hunter while they were still out and wait until his prana circuits calmed down enough that he would be willing to risk opening them.

Except, same problem as earlier, he had nothing to bind her with. He had used all the nets that Cline had given him during the raid on the Einzbern Mansion. He would normally just project one, but again, but considering the state of his circuits that wasn't an option.

And nothing else he had access to would be able to hold a Von Einzbern combat Homunculus for more then a few seconds. After all, what kind of material could counter the power of a being whose strength famously surpassed that of the average dead apostle by a rather large margin, and could even rival that of a physically weak servant like assassin. Really, it was a miracle that Cline had been able to make anything capable of holding one at all.

Seeing as tying her up was out, that left only three options. Take the tunnel, which had all sorts of unknown potential risks, wait in the chamber until he could use his circuits with the homunculus, which risked it recovering and capturing him, or finally . . . kill the homuculus.

The first two options were far too risky to seriously consider, and the third one was . . . more or less physically impossible for him. How could he, a eleven year old boy, kill a VON EINZBERN COMBAT HOMUNCULUS? They could wade through machine-gun fire like it was a squirt-gun-fight, tank missiles like they were water-balloons, and treat a group of assault vehicles like a litter of naughty puppies.

It was impossible. If he had his weapons, and was able to use reinforcement, he might be able to kill her, but at the time being it was simply out of the question (Shirou told himself as he ignored the bitter feeling at the back of his throat).

It was at that point that Shirou caught a glimpse of silver glistening in the edge of the flowerbed about a meter to the right of the homunculus. Staring at it for a moment, Shirou glanced back and forth between it and the woman several times. She was still gazing senselessly at the ceiling, eyes blinking at random every one to three seconds.

Shirou inhaled deeply to calm himself, before approaching the shining object to confirm his suspicious. Sure enough, it was the Homunculus's halberd, the beautifully crafted weapon laying in the dirt with it's head buried into the earth.

Shirou spared a moment to be glad that the massive weapon hadn't landed on top of him, before crouching down next to it. He took one last glance at the albino woman to confirm that she still hadn't moved, before reaching down the grab the handle of the oversized weapon.

With a heave, the pre-teen wrenched the axe-blade out of the dirt and lifted the halberd up to chest level (using his legs, not his back, of course). It was almost scary how easily he lifted the pole-arm. Even in spite of the weapons incredible weight, which was roughly half of his own, he lifted it with about as much effort as the average boy his age would us to lift a garden hoe.

Looking over the weapon, Shirou saw that, to no surprise, the halberd was undamaged. He took a moment to wipe the dirt off of the blade, admiring it. Even is spite of the unnecessary decoration of the artistically designed blade, it remained an absolutely devastating weapon in the right hands (Mostly because of the enchantments place on it to increase it's durability).

He gently ran the fingernail of his ring-finger over the blade, noting how a deep furrow was left in the keratin despite the negligible amount of pressure he had applied. He was certain that if he had use the slightest bit more force, he would be bleeding.

Between the magically maintained sharpness of the blade, and the shear weight of the blade, he was certain that even an untrained civilian would be able to cut through steel bars as if it was nothing with this axe, no matter how sloppy the swing. In the hands of someone stronger and more experienced, this halberd could cut through even magically reinforced materiel with little resistance.

Shirou was sure that even without reinforcement, he'd be able to appositely pulverize the body-armour he was wearing with a single one handed swing. With a full force two handed swing he'd probably be able to . . .

Shirou's eye's drifted to Homunculus, and felt a pit form in his stomach.

While he had discounted the possibility of killing her less than a full minute ago, thinking more deeply on it, was she really at full strength right now?

The source(or at least a large part) of a combat's Homunculi's incredible physical strength and durability was the layers of ether clumps running over and through their muscular systems.

Ether clumps were, at there core, a clay like liquid that formed when the fifth imaginary factor failed to properly bind itself to an element, and it's primary use was as a mana-conductor. Assuming that the Homunculus's prana-flow was as shot as his own, it was possible that it's durability was no longer at their normally inhuman levels.

Swallowing the thick layer of bitter tasting saliva that was building up in the back of his throat, Shirou slowly walked up beside the woman who had spent the better part of the morning chasing him down.

His eyes moved back and forth from the dull eyed face staring up at him and the halberds gleaming axe blade, feeling a surge of nervous energy shoot through his arms and legs like an electric shock. His jaws clenched together as he swallowed again, throat dry, a thick coating off foul tasting liquid covering his tongue.

For the second time that day Shirou found his heart beating a mile a minute, this time for a competently different reason.

Shirou spent almost half a minute just standing over the Homunculus woman, shivering slightly, before slowly moving the halberd into a resting position over his shoulder similar to that of someone preparing to chop wood.

Tightening his grip on the halberd, he griped it with his left hand near the base, and his right hand as close to the blade as possible. He continued to stare down at the Homunculi's face for several seconds, stomach rolling. He noticed for the first time that their was a thin stream of tears dripping down from the corner of her eye. _'She looks like she's in pain.'_ he couldn't help but think.

Shirou closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. Holding his breath for a moment, he slowly exhaled. When he opened his eye's there was a hard look to them.

"I can't let you recover." Shirou said out loud, looking the Homunculus right in the eye. She didn't respond.

"If you do, you'll drag me back to the rest of the Von Einzbern, and the we'll be back to wear we started." He continued. "I'm sorry, I know that your just following orders, and that that's basically all you _can_ do, but . . . "

He stopped and breathed in again, clenching his eye shut. "I need to at least try. I need to try . . . I NEED TO TRY!"

With an burning fire of DETERMINATION burning it's way through his chest, Shirou exploded into motion. His muscles uncoiled like over-stressed springs, right hand moving down the handle to meet his left at the base, sending the halberd into a blurring overhead arch. The air seemed to explode around the blade as a sonic boom sounded out, Shirou's eye's practically burning as the halberd raced towards it's owner's exposed neck.

_'What am I doing?'_

And then, just as fast as it had appeared, the fire in his chest burnt out, and Shirou threw his whole body-weight to the right, the halberd turning so that it slammed into the ground a full six inches above the head of it's initial target, sending a small blast of dirt flying into the air and filling the chamber with a cloud of dust.

The homunculus didn't even seem to notice.

Shirou just starred at the crater for a second, before he slowly began to hyperventilate. With a jerk, he pulled himself away from the halberd as if it had burned him. Falling unto his rear end, he began an almost panicked crab-crawl backwards until he collided back first with the wall of the chamber. Bracing his back against the wall, he took his head in both hands and shivred as tears began to well up in his eye's.

_'What am I doing?'_ He thought to himself, whole body quivering like he was cold. "I can't kill them. I just . . . can't."

He sat their for several minutes, slightly shivering, feeling lightheaded. No matter how hard he tried to fill his lungs, he still felt like he wasn't getting enough air. He wanted to trace his favourite sword and just focus on it's calming aura. He wanted to smell flowers that Conery had planted in their yard. He wanted to lay down on his futon at home. _He wanted to hug his dad._

Slowly, Shirou shifted until he was sitting on his knees, doing calming breath exercises in order to slow down his heart rate. Slowly, he wiped away the liquid built up at the sides of his eye's with one of his sleeves, and it hit him just how physically and mentally exhausted he really was.

Getting blasted off a cliff, running from amoral mages and their superhuman maids, sleeping in cold forests(If he got to sleep at all), crossing rocky crag after rocky crag in a mad scramble, fighting through thick undergrowth with hardly a moment to just stop and think, it was all too much for him.

Yes, he had outright ridiculous endurance, especially for a pre-teen, and yes, he was far more capable than any child his age had any right to be, but that didn't mean he was made of iron (no matter what his origin had to say about the matter).

He was struck by the sudden urge to lay down and just fall asleep, but fought it off, dragging himself to his feet.

"I'm still in danger." he reminded himself out loud. "I still need to get out of here."

He looked around the room one last time, eye's focusing in on the crater under and around the homunculus head. Slowly, he walked up to her, grabbing the halberd from were it sat buried next to her head, and quickly retreated to the other side of the room, where he hid it behind a pillar. _'Now, if she comes to her senses, she'll at least have to look to find he weapon . . . not that she really needs one all that badly.'_

Shirou looked around for a moment, before his eye's settled on a large branch he had noticed earlier, which had several straight, sturdy looking branches. Breaking off one, he crept up to the Homunculus and begingin to prode her with the sick, gauging for a response. After doing the equivalent of setting of a bomb by her ears, he doubted that he would get a response, but better safe than sorry.

He jabbed her gently in the side with the stick, watching her face for any response. Nothing. Taking a chance, he jabbed her less gently in the cheek. Still nothing. Circling around her, he took a chance and grabbed her by the ankles, dragging her until her head was no longer half inside of an impact crater. To no surprise, there was no response.

Shirou, now more confident, walked up to her head and slowly began to dust the dirt off of her face. When she still didn't respond, the boy huffed nervously, grabbed her by the shoulder's and dragged her the still unresponsive woman to the opposite side of the room from her halberd(getting green and yellow stains from the flower on her dress in the process).

He made sure that she was laying in a more comfortable position than the rag-dolled state she had been in before, arms folded on her stomach. He tried to make her close her eye's, but she just kept opening them and going back to blinking constantly. He continued to try for a moment, before he spotted something silver out of the corner of his eye

Walking over to were the homunculus had been laying a few seconds before, he swept his hands through the crushed flowers until they made contact with something wooden. Grabbing it and pulling it out of the flattened greenery, he found that it was the same mining pick he had projected when her first fell down.

_'She fell on top of this? Ouch, that had to hurt.'_

Shirou frowned, looking at the pick. Seeing as how his circuits were closed, he hadn't even noticed that it was still projected. It wasn't surprising, his mundane projections could last up to a few days if he was lucky, but he had forgotten all about it in the excitement.

Now that he was focusing on it, he could feel the minute connection between himself and the pick. It pulsed lightly at the back of his mind, a thread connected to his circuits would allow him to dissolve it back into prana, reinforce it from a distance or even . . . when had his circuits calmed down?

Realizing that his prana circuits were no longer feeling out of wack, and hadn't for the past few minutes, Shirou felt a rush of excitement. If they were back to normal, then he could project a rope-arrow and climb out of this hole, no suspicious tunnel necessary . . . but what should he do with the homunculus?

Returning his attention to the woman in the corner, he pursed his lips. Just leaving her here may be advantageous. It was likely that she could just climb out on her own power once she had recovered, but he doubted she had much skill at tracking on her own, and with how rocky the mountain above was around the hole, it was likely he could lose her.

. . . assuming she _was_ going to recover, that is.

"Why are you taking so long to recover?" Shirou muttered to himself, looking down on the Homunculi. "I only took a few minutes to start feeling better, but your not even . . . " he recalled a lesson he had received from Conery a few years prior popped into his head. While not all of the lesson was relevant, one part of it in particular stood out to him.

"_We homunculi aren't so much clones as we are magic circuits made to have a human form. We're essentially artificial nature spirit's with a physical body. Who's DNA they're grow from doesn't really matter that much compared to the skill of the designer."_

"You were built around your circuits. That's what the bounded field affected, my circuits. That's why your taking it so hard!" he exclaimed excitedly, relieved to have an answer.

Walking under the hole in the roof, Shirou looked up to see the sky above them. If the boundary line that they crossed messed with ones prana circuits, then the homunculus was likely suffering from something akin to a seizure or stroke right now.

If that was the case, then leaving her down here may be a death sentence. I would probably be better for him to tie her up and drag her up to the surface after he climbed up. At least then it was more likely that the Von Einzbern would find and repair her.

_'Of course, they may also scrap her, but that's still better than leaving her here to starve, right? It's not like I can carry her around until I find the others and have Moritz fix her. Assuming she even needs to be fixed.'_

Shirou spared a moment to consider how ironic it was to be showing someone he was _just_ trying to kill this much concern, then returned his focus to escaping.

First things first, he should tie up the homunculus before doing anything else. Meaning he had to trace one of the nets that Cline had made for him a week before. Nodding to himself, Shirou brought up the mental blueprint of the net, opened one of the prana circuits in his arm, and . . . closed it again as several times the expected prana were generated, startling Shirou.

"What in the world?" Shirou muttered, glaring at his hand in confusion. He opened the another circut in the same arm, only for the same thing to happen.

Each of Shirou's circuits could handle a maximum of ten to fifteen units of prana, but well over two dozen units had been immediately generated when he opened the circuit. That . . . made no sense.

Prana circuits did not get stronger, the amount of power you were born with was what you were stuck with for your whole life (barring getting a crest or transplant from a relative). It was possible for the illusion of development to exist if ones circuits had degraded, and you worked them back up to normal condition, but going beyond the limit of ones circuit quality was . . . well, not impossible, assuming your willing to blow said circuit up in the processes, but stupid and risky.

And yet, as Shirou looked, it seemed that the quality of his circuits had doubled, if not tripled, some time withing the last hour.

The only thing he could liken it to was how a circuit tuner could temporarily improve ones output, but the upper limits to that were a 40 percent power increase, which, while nothing to scoff at, was still no-where near the level of what he was currently experiencing.

_'Was this what made my circuits feel so weird earlier? The boundary line made my circuits stronger?'_ He pondered, before a more concerning thought came up. _'If someone finds about this, I'll be dissected!'_

He spent a moment panicking before fighting it down. _'I can worry about that latter, besides, I don't even know if this is permanent or not.'_

Calming down, Shirou decided to experiment. Activating one of the circuits in his non-dominant arm(the appendage he could most afford to loose), he waited to see if there were any side effects to the power increase.

After counting to one hundred with no sign of problems from the active circuit, he took a risk and traced one of his favourite kitchen knife. Again, facing no issues, he began to trace more and more complex weapons, until he decided to just give up and make the net to hold the homunculus.

Tracing non-weapon objects was always several times harder than the swords and knives he usually worked with (Conery had been quite surprised when he found out that just sharpening the edge of a shield had cut it's trace-cost down by 70%). Thus, Shirou took several seconds focusing on the design of the net, making sure he remembered all the details possible before he started.

Opening his too-strong circuit, a metal ball roughly the size of a soft-ball appeared in the palm of his left hand with a blue-green blaze of light. Looking it over in satisfaction, he smiled. Pressing a hidden button on the top, Shirou threw the net ball into the air right before it burst into a circular wire net roughly ten feet in diameter.

He estimated that, assuming that Gaia's presence wasn't abnormally powerful, the net would last for three hours before it dematerialized. Plenty of time to work with.

Walking over to the humunculus, he checked for any sighs of awareness, waving his hands over her eyes and snapping his fingers next to her ears. When he got no response, he picked her up, carried her over to the net and proceed to roll her up like a burrito, being sure to tie the edges in knots that would be hard to break from the inside.

He then traced a long, light cable, thin enough that he could tie it to an arrow and shoot it from is bow without issue, but still be able to get a good grip to climb up it. He then tied the cable to the net in such a way that it wouldn't be to difficult to haul the woman out after him.

Nodding in satisfaction, he moved on to the bow and arrow. The arrow was made of solid iron, and had several hooks attached to the side's. He tied the cable to the arrow near the base, before tracing his dark grey, camo-painted, carbon fibre hunting bow, and spent a few seconds reinforcing it.

Nodding in satisfaction with his equipment, Shirou turned his attention to his own body. Going to reinforce his arms, he found to his own concern that they were already reinforced.

" . . . What?" He murmured. "When did that happen?"

Putting down the bow and arrow, Shirou structurally grasped his whole body, and found that he was entirely reinforced, the same way he was when doing combat training.

_'Thinking back on it, I broke the sound barrier when I swung the halberd. I've done that plenty of times before, but always while I was reinforced, so I had to have been back when that happened.'_ he thought, hand on his chin. _'But I don't remember reinforcing myself back then. Did I reinforce myself while I was falling, and it just hasn't worn off yet? If the boundary field we're in degrades Gaia's influence, that explain it, but that doesn't seem to be right.'_

Shaking his head, Shirou reached down and retrieved his bow and arrow. "I can worry about this later."

Moving into position beneath the hole, Shirou placed the arrow on the bow, pulled back the string, aimed for the edge of the top of the hole, and released.

The arrow flew straight and true despite the excess weight of the cable and the awkward angle, a testament to the bower of the bow. However, in spite of this, it failed to reach it's destination, bouncing off of an invisible barrier some seven meters from the top.

Shirou watched the arrow fall back to the bottom of the hole with an incredulous expression. Looking between the arrow, and the spot it had hit the barrier, then back to the arrow, then back to the barrier, he suddenly snapped. "What kind of screwed up magus makes a bounded field that let's you in but won't let you out?!"

Shaking his head angrily, he traced one of the mystic code arrows that Cline had made him, one with a anti-barrier and piercing qualities, took aim and fired again.

This time, there was a visible response from the barrier, with the area around were the arrow struck it turning monochrome for a moment, before the arrow fell back to the ground.

Shirou glared at it for a moment, before tracing another mystic code, this one explosive, and having destabilization properties. When this one hit the barrier, the entire area behind the boundary line turned monochrome before it was hidden by the ball of fire, but the arrow still didn't penetrate it.

"Is it to much to ask that one little thing be easy today?" Shirou asked the sky, shoulder's slumped. Receiving no answer from above, he sighed. "Fine."

Deciding to pull out the big guns, he closed his eyes and brought up the blue-print for the most powerful arrow he had access to.

It was a large, bulky arrow, almost half an inch thick and made of solid steel. Several holes covered it, two right behind the head on either side, and three at the very back near the fletching.

Shirou triggered the magecraft infused into the arrow, and air began to be sucked into the holes in the arrow at such a speed that it made all of the flowers in the room sway violently in the vacuum induced winds.

Unlike most of his equipment, this arrow was a gift from Deylin rather than something Cline had made. The dream magus had created the arrow so that it created a pocket in imaginary number space, sucked air into said pocket, and then expelled it at an extremely high speed, essentially making an arrow that behaved more like a rocket or missile.

Notching the arrow almost the instant it reached full capacity, Shirou pointed it up the hole and fired.

It shot off with speed surpassing a tank shell, and slammed into the barrier spilling like a drill. It ground against the boundary line, making no progress, before Shirou triggered the seconds function.

Unleashing all the remaining stored air in a single large blast, the arrow shattered into a thousand tiny shards even as a shock wave flowed out from where it had been only nanoseconds before.

The barrier was undamaged by the powerful explosion . . . the walls of the pit, however, shattered under the force and began to fall down into the chamber bellow.

It was at that point that Shirou realized that setting of explosions inside a cave may not be the best idea.

Dashing over the the Homunculus still bound in the net, he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder before jumping to the far corner of the room were the tunnel leading out was, as rocks slammed down on the flower patch behind him.

Shirou watched the mayhem with a grimace, flinching and clenching his eyes shut with each resounding "crash!" as several tones of rocks fell down onto the pore unfortunate flower-patch. The cave-in lasted for roughly fifteen seconds, after which Shirou spent another ten staring into the dust cloud that had been stirred up in a slight daze.

Arching his neck, he tried to get a look up the hole to the sky above from his position in the hallway, to no avail. "Well, now what?" He groaned scratching the back of his head. If he couldn't get through the barrier, then his only option was the tunnel, which was more or less unknown territory. But it seemed that the only way he _could_ go was through the archway.

"Ok, what the hell was _that_?!" a high pitched voice sounded out from through the door, making Shirou tense. "Did someone sneak past me and start making BOMBS?!" the voice continued as Shirou crept up to the corner, and peaked around, already prepared to trace a sword if worst came to worst.

"I mean seriously, what the . . . Oh, hello there!" The owner of the voice exclaimed in a far to cheerful tone upon catching sight of him peaking around the corner. Shirou meanwhile, just starred at the one meter tall talking plant in a combination of nervousness and confusion.

"I'm Flowey, Flowey the flower!"

* * *

**AN: Ok, that's it, that's all I'm writing for this chapter! I was planing to have this out on Monday, but it sort of ran away with me. On the bright side, it's way longer than my usual chapter's. Not the longest I've ever done, but probably top five.**

**I'm not necessarily happy with how it turned out, but I feel that I've improved over the last chapter. At least.**

**A big problem I had writing this, was that I felt that I may be writing Shirou a little more OOC then necessary. Sure, this is an AU, and Shirou's younger here to boot, but Shirou's shown certain consistency's to his personality, even across timelines, so I wanted him to still be as in character as possible. I don't thing I necessarily succeed, but I suppose that I can just claim that his not himself because of all the stress he's under.**

**I feel I've gotten a better grasp of Shirou's identity over the past three day's, however, so that shouldn't be as much of a problem in the future.**

**Now this Author's note is dragging a bit long, so I'll end it here for now. Until next time!**


	3. Thorns and Blades

**AN: Ok, next chapter. Hopefully, there being more people to carry dialogue this chapter will make my third person less awkward.**

**On a more personal note, I have successfully summoned Arthur Pendragon Prototype in FGO. I am now grinding in preparation for the Camalot singularity, because I've herd that there's a difficulty spike.**

* * *

Flowey the Flower spent a lot of time in the ruins. There were many reasons for this, ranging from isolation, to comfort, to security. Simply put, the ruins were the most comfortable place in the underground that didn't have either way to many monsters walking around, or have Alphys camera's scattered all over the place.

Of course, that is not to say he couldn't simply dodge the camera's, he had gotten rather good at avoiding them over the course of all his resets, but she had a habit of installing new one's when he wasn't looking, and this was the longest the plant-based pseudo monster had ever gone without resetting.

Of course, there was always the risk of running into Toriel, one of the very few monsters who posed a serious threat to him in battle, but she wasn't dangerous unless he had been behaving violently during the current run. Which he hadn't been this run.

If he ran into her in this run, the chances of her inviting him to dinner were actually higher than the chances of her attacking him(The knew this from experience. Shame that she could never think of anything to make for him if he did accept. The trials of being a plant.).

Really, the biggest problem Flowey had with the ruins was the walls. A lot of the walls in the ruins were old, so if he were to tunnel to close to one, there was the risk of damaging something load-bearing and causing a cave-in. That tended to be painful, especially the one time when he had foolishly surfaced to find out what was happening and gotten flattened by a boulder.

The fact that none of the monster's living in the ruins had managed to cause a cave-in themselves was either a miracle, or a testament to how weak most them were. Flowey tended to lean towards the later option, as there was two, maybe three monster's in the ruins who could survive one of his opening attacks on a good day. Counting Toriel.

Still, in spite of the crumbling walls and the boring company, the ruins were the best place to stay for a psychotic Flower during their down time. There was plenty of light and water, it was easy the get leaf-compost, and the temperature was more hospitable by far than most of the underground. It was the perfect place to take a nap and dream of more entertaining runs through the underground.

That was what Flowey was doing this particular day, sleeping. He went to one of the far off corners of the ruins were it was unlikely that anyone would disturb him, and drifted off to dreamland. At least his dreams had the potential to be entertaining, which was more then most of the underground could claim at the moment.

Currently, Flowey was having a nice dream about tricking a certain royal guard wannabee who had made WIS their dump stat into "accidentally" attacking their trash-bag of a brother. Just as it was getting to the good part, however, a strong vibration rippled through the ground and up his roots, jolting him awake.

"Whaa . . . " he muttered in a sleepy daze, before shaking his head viciously to wake himself up. Once he was fully awake, he looked around the chamber for the source of the sound, before realizing that it had felt like it was coming from deeper into the ruins.

"Did one of the walls come down?" he murmured out loud, before smiling in glee. Their was a lot of potential to a wall collapsing, especially if he couldn't be blamed for it himself. He get someone buried, save someone who was buried, used it to become a hero in the ruins then watch in glee as he betrayed everyone, so many options!

But which room was in that the collapse had happened in? And had it been triggered or happened naturally?

Sliding into the ground with a "Pop!", he closed his petals to shield his face and slithered through the ground, using vibration and experience to navigate the tunnels.

He surfaced in every room to look around, searching for any signs of the source of the vibration he had felt earlier, to no avail. He did, however, startle several Froggit's, send a half dozen Whimsun running(well, floating) away crying("pathetic") and nearly went straight through a Moldsmal when he surfaced.

As amusing as all that was, it wasn't what he was looking for. By the time he reached the end of the ruins, were the artificial, magical light was traded in for the natural light spilling in through the hole(s) in the cavern's roof, he was understandably annoyed. The only room he had yet to check was Chara's grave-room, which didn't really have any unstable points he was aware of. At least he had never caused a cave in in there.

Flowey surfaced under the sunbeam in the room next to the "falling chamber" as he had used called it in another life, spreading his petals wide and shaking any remaining dirt off of them.

"Well, now what?" he asked himself, sighing. Should he go back and search again, or just sun himself for a little bit? He didn't really need as much light as the normal flower, but on the other hand sunning himself felt rather nice, especially when it was natural light, and he could use some stress relief that didn't require that he 'Load' immediately afterwards.

_'Well, I guess I can find the cave-in later, not like anyone in the ruins will be able to clean in up fast enough for me not to.'_ he decided, relaxing slightly. He wiggled his roots around in the dirt for a moment to get more comfortable, and relaxed his stem.

After a few minutes, he began to doze off in the sunbeam, a pleasant feeling flowing from his petals and leaves down through the rest of his body.

Then a sound similar to radio static caught his attention, bringing him back to focus. He looked around the room for the source of the sound, but saw nothing to explain it. Turing around, he looked at the entrance to Chara's room curiously, wondering if that was the sound's origin.

A few seconds later, that theory was confirmed as air began getting sucked into the room by what sounded like a tornado.

"WHAT THE HECK?" Flowey squeaked as his petals flapped in the wind, staring wide eyed at the entrance to the room.

He quickly retreated beneath the ground and cautiously edged closer to the doorway, listening to the wind from beneath the ground. Once the wind stopped, he slowly pushed his head out from under the earth and peaked through the doorway, only to be hit with a wall of sound as something exploded, blasting all his petals backwards.

Before he could even consider retreating under the ground, the wind stopped, but the sound of crashing remained, the ground shaking. It lasted for nearly ten seconds, during which Flowey just stared at the doorway with wide eye's.

" . . . Ok, what the hell was _that_!?" Flowey suddenly exclaimed, face contorting into a cartoonist angry face. "Did someone sneak past me and start making BOMBS?! I mean seriously, what the . . . " Flowey paused in his rant as a face peaked around the corner, and time seemed to freeze, the sentient plant's mind racing a mile a minute.

A Human. There was a Human in the underground. Why was the human in the exploding room? Did they cause the explosions? How? Did they have a bomb or something? Did . . . he was staring at them suspiciously, they should say something. "Oh, hello there! I'm Flowey the flower."

An awkward silence existed between the two of them for several seconds, the human hardly twitching at the flower's declaration of their name, which usually got some form of reaction do to it's childish simplicity. After almost half a minute struggling to maintain his cheerful smile, the human responded.

"Shirou."

Flowey continued to stare at him for roughly three seconds, waiting to see if he would say anything else, before he talked again.

"Shirou? Is that your name?" The human nodded slowly, eyes still narrowed in suspicion. Flowey noticed absently that they were closing their eye's individually rather than blinking, so they always had one eye on him. Interesting.

"Well Shirou, welcome to the underground!" The flower smiled cheerfully, backing away from the human a little, tearing a furrow into the dirt as he moved backwards instead of retreating underground first. He didn't think this human was falling for their happy-friendly-flower routine, but stopping it now that he had started would be even more suspicious.

"It's nice to meet you," Flowey continued, giving his best smile. "We don't get visitors very often. It's been decades since someone new came down into the mountain. I hope you didn't have to hard a time. I hear that it's not a very nice . . . trip. Oh darn-it!" He scowled as he noticed the pun. "That smiley trash-bag's gotten into my head. Sorry!" He did his cutest possible pouty face and bowed, hoping that his momentary lapse into anger would be ignored.

This human was already suspicious of him, if his expression was anything to go by, and Flowey didn't want to push his luck before he had a clear shoot at them.

Looking the human over in an overly-obvious manner, the talking flower noted how the human was wearing what looked almost like miniature set of military gear, which was concerning, as combined with the explosions from earlier, Flowey was getting the distinct impression he was dealing with a child soldier. For all he knew, the kid had a gun . . .

"Well, you don't look hurt, that's good, but you should probably go see a healer pretty soon, or at least take a bath, cause you are filthy!" Flowey continued. "Seeing as how your new down here, I suppose you could use some directions to . . . "

The human suddenly cut him off. "What are you?"

Flowey tilted his head to the side cutely and pursed his "lips" in his best confused face. "What do you mean? I'm a Flower, obviously. One of the local golden flowers to be specific! I used to know the scientific name for what I am but I forgot . . . hmm, no I can't seem to remember. I'll have to look that up later."

The human waited for Flowey to stop talking before he elaborated. "Last I checked, flowers don't talk. Why can you?"

Flowey smiled to himself as he noticed that the human had taken a step into the room. While he was still wary, he had let his guard down, however slightly. He slowly crept his roots through the ground, the appendages growing a great deal in only a few seconds as he positioned them under the rooms exits, ready to spring up and block them at a moments notice.

"Oh, well, I'm a very special Flower! When I was still a sprout, the Royal Scientist injected me with a very special red liquid, and I woke up! Pretty cool, huh?" Flowey smirked proudly, formulating a plan of attack even as he kept his target occupied.

Just because he couldn't see any weapons didn't mean their weren't any, after all, and he didn't want to end up getting hit by a hand grenade or something.

"Which royal scientist?" the human asked, a hint of concern leaking into his voice, his body getting ever so slightly more tense.

"Why, the undergrounds royal scientist of course, silly!" Flowey cheered.

The human seemed to consider that answer for several seconds" . . . This is a kingdom, then?"

"Of course it is! Has been for . . . well, ever since we monsters got stuck down here, really." Flowey did the approximation of a shrug with his leaves.

"Monster's?" The boy made a sour face as he said the word, like it tasted fowl.

"That's what we are, monsters! I would have thought it was rather obvious, what with me being a talking plant and all. But hey, I guess that you just got hear, so your probably pretty confused! I know I would be!" Flowey braced his roots for a burst of movement.

"So I guess that it's up to little old me to show you how things work around here! Let me show you!"

* * *

Shirou tensed as a strange feeling washed over his body, a tingling sensation rippling under his skin. His whole body felt light, like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, making him feel off balance for a moment. As he watched, the colour seemed to drain from the room around him, purple bricks turning grey before his eyes.

A pulling sensation washed over his body, centred right over his solar plexus. Shirou stumbled as he felt a strange energy, both incredibly familiar, and yet utterly foreign, flow out of his body.

With a glimmer of red light, a large red heart appeared floating in front of him, it's soft scarlet glow the only speck of colour in the monochrome world around him. Looking at it, he knew what it was, as if by instinct. _'This is . . . '_

"You see that heart? That's your soul, the very culmination of your being!" The flower chimed in, confirming the young magus's thoughts. A half dozen lectures Deylin had given him on the nature of the soul flashed through his mind as he tried to reconcile what he was seeing with what he already knew about the soul.

From what he understood, the human soul always adhered to the shape of body of the person who's soul it was, with every detail of a persons existence being recorded by the soul, including aging and injuries. So, shouldn't his soul look just like his body? Even in the few soul transfer rituals were soul appeared visually, it manifested as a blue flame, not a red heart.

And why was he still conscious if his soul was no longer in his body? Removing the soul from a person was quite possible, often done in order to transfer one's soul into another body, but once the soul was disconnected from the host-body, said body should cease to function.

"Your soul starts off rather weak, as you could probably guess," the flower continued unaware of Shirou's racing thoughts. "But, you can make it stronger using lot's and lots of these magic pellets!" the flower cheered, a half dozen little white ovals roughly the size of a small egg, and shaped like a seed popped into existence around Flowey, rotating at high speed.

"Luckily, I have lot's and lot's of these, here, try them!" Flowey smiled as the pellets floated towards Shirou at the speed of a casual ball toss. Shirou, having no reason to trust the flower, side stepped them.

"I'm sorry, but my Dad always tells me to never accept things from strangers, and I've only known you for a few minutes." Shirou explained as he held up his hand palm forward in a stopping motion.

The flower thought for a moment, before another dozen pellets appeared in the air around him. "I understand what you saying, but some of the monsters down here may try to attack you. It would be better if you take some of these now!" He explained, before launching all of the pellets towards Shirou at a slightly faster speed then the last time.

Shirou ducked under them this time, crouching slightly and bending backwards as they flew over head. "No, really, if my father found out that I accepted some magic pellets from a talking flower, he'd lock me in a security bunker for a decade!"

The flower stared at him for a moment, before sighing. "Ok. You know what? We both know what's going on here." The white pellets began to appear around Flowey by the dozens. "You have a soul. I need a soul. SO." The ground behind Shirou, as well as beneath the exit at the other end of the room, exploded as vines with large thorns emerged from the ground, blocking all his escape routes.

"I'm going to take YOURS!" The pellets began rotating around the room like a small tornado, completely surrounding Shirou on all sides. "No hard feelings, alright?" the pellets began to rotate like a twister, faster and faster, until they were moving faster than most bullets, forming a rough sphere around the young Magus. The Flower smiled evilly, face warping and swelling into something that reminded Shirou of an old stop-motion horror monster. "But I need you to DIE!"

With that proclamation, all the pellets curved in their flight to fly right at him. Thinking fast, Shirou projected a large metal Shield, which took two hands to hold properly, and dove into the incoming fire.

The feeling of the pellets slamming into the shield reminded him of a dozen-or-so machine-guns all bombarding him at once(What did it say about his childhood that he new that?), but he powered through them without loosing his balance.

Shirou spun around as soon as he broke through to the other side, just barely managing to block most of the group of pellets coming to hit him from behind, only taking one hit to his right shoulder, which pierced about four centimetres in before stopping.

The pellet seemed to dissipate as soon as the damage was done, and Shirou felt an odd, electric sensation flow through his body from the point where the pellet hit.

"What?! Where did you . . . ? No, it doesn't matter."

Before Shirou could ponder what the sensation could mean, his assailant redoubled their assault, sprouting two large thorny vines from the ground, each as thick as a grown mans arm, and swung them at him.

Shirou dropped the large shield, projecting a smaller, lighter kite-shield that wouldn't slow him down as much as he jumped backwards to avoid the Flowers attack, which collided with the ground next to him throwing up a large cloud of dirt to block his view.

Taking advantage, Flowey shot a swarm of his pellets through the dust cloud, which Shirou barely managed to block in time.

Tracing a large machete into his right hand, Shirou crouched low and charged through the dust cloud and, emerging on the other side, took a swing at the Flower's surprised face.

With a yipe, the Flowey quickly blocked the attach with one of the thorny vines. The Machete was stopped by the thick piece of greenery, but cut most of the way through.

The wiley plant took advantage,and using his control of the vines, squeezed the blade to trap the blade inside the cut it had made. Smirking, the flower pulled the blade towards himself, dragging a surprised Shirou with it.

Flowey drew back his other vine, thrusting it point-first at the human like a spear. Shirou blocked with his Shield, but with his feet still off the ground, he lost his grip on the machete he was sent flying backwards into the wall behind himself. Hitting the wall hard enough to crack the stone, Shirou was given no time to recover, as an instant latter the wall began to vibrate.

Jumping away on instinct proved prudent, as the wall exploded into a mass of more vines even as he pulled away from it, the tendrils grasping at him as he tucked into a roll.

Coming back to his feet with a scowl, Shirou reinforced the sharpened edge of his shield as much as possible, before throwing it with a full body spin.

The kite-shield sailed through the air like one of it's namesakes, aimed right at Flowey's stem. The flower, seeing this, squeaked, and pulled itself underneath the ground just as the flying blade slammed into the two large vines it had used to attack earlier, shearing them in two.

Shirou traced a new sword, a mystic code in the form of a sabre this time, and fell into a crouch, focusing on vibrations from the floor. Nothing happened.

Slowly, Shirou began to turn around, looking all around the room. The vines blocking the door were still there. As were the ones that had shot out of the wall earlier. However, neither of those were moving. Had the Flower run away?

Shirou considered structurally grasping the ground to find out. Wile he didn't normally like to risk large, usually redundant uses of magic like that, he had excess energy to burn at the moment.

After a moment, he risked it, slowly spreading his magical energy through the ground around him. Their was no sign of the flowers presence beyond a few small tunnels for the first ten feet down, below that however . . .

Shirou's blood ran cold, and he leapt straight up as the ground beneath him exploded. Everywhere he looked there were spike covered vines, waving like tentacles as they grasped at him. Almost instantly the floor became a mass of tentacle like vines so thick it looked like your stereotypical pit of snakes.

His jump was powerful enough that it carried him to the rocky ceiling, where he dug in his sword at an angle to try and remain above the creeping vines. The weak stone wasn't able to support his weight for long, however, and began to crumble away, leaving the young magus at the mercy of gravity.

Years of training kicked in as he fell, and he manoeuvred so that he landed one of the vines, using it as a spring board before Flowey could respond. Bounding from grasping vine to grasping vine, never allowing his feet to stay idle for more than a tenth of a second, he cut through vine after vine with his sabre, movements blurring.

Several times he full on jumped up to bounce off the roof just to avoid becoming to predictable.

Thus far, Flowey had kept their vulnerable head underground, and was thus gauging his attacks based on vibrations rather than by sight. Because of the extreme speed of their battle, however that meant the plant monster was forced to predict where his opponent was with outdated information, meaning the vines usually grasped where he had been half a second after he had already left that area.

After ten seconds of this, and about two dozen cut vines, Flowey changed up his game plan. Just as Shirou was about to land on another vine, the vines thorns, which had started out as being only about one and a half to three centimetres long, and spaces far enough apart that he could easily find a foot-hold, suddenly doubled in number, and quadrupled in length, easily piercing through the bottom of his military boot.

With a yelp of pain and a brief flail of his arms, Shirou tried to jump off of the spike impaling his foot, only to find that the flower had also taken the time to make the vines serrated, causing him to stumble and fall backwards into the waiting mass of vines.

_'Call for help!'_ a voice echoed in the back of his mind, but he ignored it.

The vines grabbed unto his arms and legs, suspending him in the air and pulling his limbs in all directions so that he could barely move.

Before he could do anything to escape from his bindings however, another vine shot out from beneath him, impaling him through the stomach from behind. He grit his teeth in pain, hot tears streaming down the edges of his face.

_'Call for help, hurry!'_ The voice echoed again.

The flower emerged from the ground about two meters away from where his feet were suspended, a broad smile etched into its cartoonish features as it laughed. "WOWIE! That was way more fun than I thought it would be! Your really not like the other humans who fell down here, are you? None of them could use magic! Not that it helped you, in the end."

Flowey leaned in close, it's smile become unbearably smug as he got right up in Shirou's face. "So, any last words.?" to punctuate his question, he wiggled the vine still in Shirous guts around, prompting a pained grunt.

Shirou panted for several seconds, the motion of breathing only serving to make the pain worse. Fighting through the pain, he brought to mind the blueprint of his favourite sword, simply thinking about it going a long way to clear his mind.

_'Call for help you idiot!'_

He breathed in deeply, and all but spat in the flowers face. "MASAMUNE!"

With no warning, not even the green-blue flames that had appeared when he projected weapons earlier, a white handled katana with a slight pale white glow to it popped into existence directly above Shirou. Before Flowey could even finish registering that it existed, the katana began to spin like a Shuriken and fly through the air at the flower, which Flowey only just managed to duck under, cursing all the while.

Coming in for another round, the Katana cut through all the vines holding Shirou in the air, as well as the one through his stomach in a single smooth motion, before landing in the boys hand Tsuka first.

Shirou landed on his feet, and ignoring the pain and the piece of vine still through his belly, charged the retreating flower with a roar.

His charged proved useless, however, as Flowey surrounded himself in dozens of the vines as a defence, and even if the Masamune-blade could cut the greenery like it wasn't their, it still slowed him down enough for the monster to take proper aim.

Before the magus could even get within attacking range of the flowers stem, two large spike shot from his vines, one skiffing along the edge of his right leg carving a deep wound, and the other going into his left kneecap.

He fell down and skidded across the ground, the sword flying from his hands, were it again began to rotate through the air, shooting over the flower and through the vines blocking the doorway as Flowey watched with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, that was random." The plant muttered.

Shirou lay on the ground, shivering in pain. He tried to move his legs, but only one of them responded. He was trying to push himself up with his arms, when he felt one of the vines touch his chin, forcing him to look up into the flowers cruelly smiling face.

A vine whipped out, smacking Shirou across the face so hard he was sent tumbling into the opposite wall. Shirou numbly considered that the cheek that had been struck had been torn off entirely by the vines long spikes, as he could feel open air on his gums, before the pain struck.

_'CALL FOR HELP RIGHT NOW!'_ The rang out through his head so clearly that it cut through his pain addled confusion.

Without really thinking about what he was doing Shirou screemed out at the top of his lungs. "HEEEEEELP!"

After the scream echoed around the room, their was a half second where Flowey stared at the human in confusion. Then a heat wave slammed into him from behind, and the flower had only one thought on his mind as the doorway exploded, vine-barrier evaporated in an instant. _'Oh shit, I forgot about Toriel.'_

**AN: Ugh, this took way, way to long, and as usual, I'm not satisfied. Or is it just that I'm a perfectionist? Either way this took something like, three times as long as it should have.**

**I have no excuse, I just kept getting distracted by other things. The fact that I got another idea for a SI, which I'm putting off until I finish this, is only slowing me down further. But I really want to finish this one. And hey, if I can beat the Absolute Radiance, then I can finish this!**

**On another note, I'm somewhat worried about combining the power-systems of Undertale and Type Moon. While Undertale is ambiguous enough to give me a lot of breathing room, I'm still worried about contradicting the Nasuverses power-system.**

**So, what I'm going to do is write out a data-page describing concepts as I understand them, and see if the TM lore-buffs chew me out. Sorry about this padding out the word-count.**

**Post proofread edit: Why do I always end up finding horrible Innuendo's after fight scene's? WHY?! . . . it this chapter, Flowey impales Shirou from behind with his thick vine.**

**ON SOULS: "The SOUL is the core of any conscious beings existence, the very centre of their being. The soul exist's in the astral plane, holding a higher order of existence. The soul connects to the host body through the brain, and stores all the body's data, weather that be memories, dna, or other physical information. Should a soul be moved from one host body to another, then the knew body will be immediately modified to match the old one.**

**The soul, in a vacuum, are the only existence in the material world that can be called "eternal". However, do to the connection to the host body, the soul is bound by the same concept's as the host, and will begin to decay and degrade with it's owner's body over time, eventually beginning to "rot" as the body ages.**

**Magic circuits are special channels that exist in the soul of some entities, which convert a being's odd (life energy) into magical energy, and replenish one's odd if depleted. They correspond to a series of specialized nerves running through the body, and require a biological signal in order to activate, leading some to mistake them for part of the body.**

**It is possible to influence the soul through magecraft, though the potential for this is limited, and currently not well researched.**

**One example of this is Spiritual Healing, using mage-craft to influence the body through the soul. In theory, as the body and soul always mirror each other, by using magecraft to affect the soul, the body will follow suit, and by removing injuries in the soul, the flesh wounds will likewise heal. This process is also used in reverse, such as by surgically removing the special nerves that corresponds to one's magic circuits, to remove the circuits themselves."**

**Hmm, I'm not really happy with this either, but I guess I did write it half asleep. I'll probably edit it sometime within the next few days. Until then, see you later.**


	4. Keeper of the Ruins

**AN: Ok C.J. It's been two days since your last chapter, get started already you lazy-bum!**

**For those of you who may be wondering, I decided to make Toriels eyes purple because of he steam trading card.**

**PPS: FGO's prover has now given me chills more consistently than . . . well, anything now. Especially after I looked up the lyrics . . . **

* * *

The temperature in the small chamber practically doubled in the space of an instant. The doorway erupted like a volcano as a river of fire flowed through it. The thick vines that had served to block the exit were reduced to powder and steam in the blink of an eye, the source of the flames blasting through like a cannonball.

The figure striding through the entryway was hard to make out, due to being covered from head to toe in fire. The flames burned so intensely that Shirou was sure that even had the room not been washed monochrome, they would have still been white from the heat.

What could be seen was a vaguely humanoid figure, who stood well over two meters tall, their head crowned by two short horns. Their face had a visible muzzle, and deep purple eyes that remained visible through their flames, most likely to avoid blinding themselves.

The two orbs carried within them both protective instinct and destructive desire, giving Shirou the impression of some form of guardian deity.

The figure looked around, taking in the room in an instant. Their gaze immediately focusing on the young boy bleeding in the corner, their eyes meeting his own for but a moment. Rage flowed off of them like smoke, and the flames surrounding them only grew even more intense as they crossed the room in an instant. The vines coating the floor of the room failed to so much as slow them down, suffering the same fate as those that had blocked the door, to horror of the the creator of said vines.

The flaming figures hand shot out towards a terrified Flowey's face, fingers curled into a burning claw. Yelping, the flower cut his losses and retreated underground, just in time to avoid having their face cut into pieces by the swiped paw.

With a snarl, the creature threw itself at Shirou, wrapping the shocked boy in a protective embrace. The flames around their body partially dispersed as they did so, as to avoid burning him, revealing a White furred creature wearing a pale-purple robe with some kind of winged emblem on it.

"What a vile creature," they snarled, in a rather feminine voice. "Torturing a child in such a way!" The monstrous woman waved the paw not currently holding the bleeding child to her chest through the air, dozens upon dozens of fireballs materializing and beginning to bombard the walls and floor.

Shirou watched the casually cast, high level spell in awe, for several seconds, before he was snapped out of his stupor by a tingling sensation flowing through his body. The white furred woman was giving off a green aura, which seemed to be the result of some form of healing spell.

Before his eyes, the hole's in his foot and stomach sealed shut, and his clothing seemed to repair itself. His cheek began to itch, and he ran his tongue over the newly regenerated flesh. Even the blood-stains disappeared, leaving him looking the very image of perfect health(aside from all the dirt he had acquired).

After a few more seconds of bathing Shirou in the verdant glow of the healing spell, just to be sure he was fine, the . . . Phantasmal being(?), he supposed, gently set him down on his feet, and began to brush the dust of his clothes, checking him over for any remaining injuries.

This went on for several minutes, to Shirou's confusion, the monster fussing over the boy in a manner reminiscent of a concerned mother. It was about the time that she licked her paw and began trying to wipe the dirt off of his face that Shirou decided that it had gone on long enough, and he took a step outside of her reach.

This seemed to confuse her for a moment, before her eyes widened and she blushed deeply enough for the red to be visible through her fur. "O-oh my, I'm sorry, my child, I got carried away." The Monster got back to her feet from where she had been crouching, dusting the dirt off of her knees. "Here I am practically babying you, and I haven't even told you my name yet."

She cleared her throat, blush beginning to fade, and curtsied. "I, am Toriel, and I am the guardian of the ruins. It is a pleasure to meet you, my child."

Now that things had calmed down somewhat, Shirou could take a moment to get a good look at his saviour. She was tall, easily a head and shoulder's above any adult human he had ever met before. Between her horns and the pair of long, floppy ears on either side of her head, she gave a rather goat-ish first impression. However, the small fangs sticking out of the front of her muzzle, pawed-feet, and clawed fingers contradicted that idea.

The symbol on her ankle length, purple robe, which he had noticed earlier, consisted of three triangles set beneath a circle with wings inside of a shield.

After looking her up and down for a moment, Shirou remembered his manners and coughed into his hand to hide his embarrassment. "I'm Emiya . . . Shirou Emiya. It is a pleasure to meet you, miss Toriel." Shirou did a short bow, but didn't take his eye's off of the Phantasmal Being.

The monster let out a motherly giggle. "What a polite young man. It's a pleasure to meet you . . . Shirou? Am I pronouncing that right?" she tilted her head to the side cutely, making Shirou compare her to one of the plush characters from a children's show.

Shirou nodded. "Yes, that's right. It's fine if you don't remember it, though. I'm a foreigner, and my name may seem odd to you. I don't mind."

"I'll do my best to remember it anyway, my child." Toriel responded, before looking around at the smoking stumps of the burnt vines. "Now I do believe that we should get out off here, the smoke can't be good for your lungs." she offered him her paw, crouching down slightly.

Shirou, still weary, considered whether he should take it or not for a moment, before slowly raising his hand to hers. Before he could grab on however, he remembered something he had forgotten in the excitement.

"The Homunculus!" he exclaimed, before running off back into the flower chamber, to Toriels confusion.

The Homunculus woman was right where he had left her, in the middle of the hallway, starring blankly at the ceiling. He checked her over, but saw no signs of injuries that hadn't been there when he set her down(or any in general really. Einzbern models were pretty tough.)

He heard Toriel come up behind him, surprisingly quietly for a creature of her size, and gasp. Kneeling beside Shirou over the Homunculi, she looked from the devastated room, to the unconscious(?) woman, and back again several times. After a moment of this, she got back to her feet and began to climb over the pile of rubble, which had built up almost too the monsters shoulders in height. Shirou stood up to watch her, somewhat curious as to what she was doing.

Once she got over the pile, she sighed in relief after seeing that the be of golden flowers in the centre of the room was largely undamaged, and climbed back over to stand over the Homunculus.

Kneeling, she rested on paw on the woman's forehead for a moment. "Well, she doesn't have a fever . . . " she muttered.

Turning to Shirou, She asked, "She isn't sick and she doesn't seem to be injured, not that I can see at least. Do you know what happened to her, my child?"

Shirou nodded. "When she passed through that bounded field," Shirou pointed up the hole in the ceiling(which was now noticeably wider than it had been), "I guess she just . . . went limp. She hit the ground and didn't even notice. She's just been like . . . this."

Toriels seemed surprised when he mentioned the barrier, but grew concerned as he continued his explanation. Placing one paw to her chin, she hummed, frowning. Slowly hovering her paw over the white haired woman's chest, she let loose a pulse of the same healing magic she had used on Shirou earlier, only to reel back in surprise a moment later. "W-what?" she gasped out.

Shirou, startled by her sudden movement, shot to his feet and pictured his father pulling back the hammer on one of his guns, ready to open his circuits at a moments notice.

After a moment of staring at the Homunculus in shock, Toriel crept back up to her, and Shirou felt a familiar sensation flow through him as the room seemed to bleach itself monochrome. An equally familiar sucking sensation washed over his body, and his "soul" materialized floating in front of is chest, the red heart glowing with a red light.

What held Toriels attention, however, was the white sphere hovering over the Homunculi chest.

"So I wasn't imagining it . . . " She muttered. Turning to Shirou, she asked, "You called this woman something earlier, right? What was it again?"

Shirou tilted his head to the side. "She's a Homunculus. That's what I said."

"And what is a Homunculus, exactly?"

Shirou thought over her question for a moment, hand on his chin, before responding. "It's kind of hard to explain . . . my teacher, Conery, described it something like this . . ." Shirou stood straight, closed his eyes, and raised on hand up to face level, pointer finger extended. ""Homunculi are, at their most basic, artificially created nature spirits inside a humanoid shell created to serve magi in some form or another." Or at least, that's how he described it. And I would expect him to know, since he's a homunculus himself. Why do you ask?"

Toriel frowned, and let whatever spell she was using end, allowing colour to return to the world, and Shirou's soul faded from view. "It caught me off guard when I realized she wasn't human . . . and you said that a mage created her?"

Shirou nodded.

"So then, there are still humans who can use magic up on the surface, then?"

Shirou crossed his arms. "Well, it's magecraft, not magic, but more or less, yes."

Toriel's frown deepened. "That's . . . no, I can worry about this later. What matters now is that pore woman on the ground. Do you know what's wrong with her?"

Shirou shrugged. "I have an idea, but I'm not an expert on this kind of thing. That's more . . . well, most of the other mages I know are a lot better at magecraft in general. All I can think of is that, since were in a bounded field that seems to all but erase the worlds influence, then maybe she's like this cause she's cut off from Gaia's influence. I mean she is a kind of nature spirit."

Toriel nodded. "I'm not really an expert on ghost's and spirits myself, but that does make sense. But that doesn't really tell us how to help her. We can't exactly take her through the barrier, and I can't think of any way to help her myself . . . "

Toriel walked over to beside Shirou and crouched at the Homunculus's side. "I suppose the first thing we should do is get her somewhere more comfortable." she proclaimed, picking the homunculus up in a bridal carry. Shirou couldn't help but think that the adult-sized woman looked like a small child compared to the large monster.

"Come on, let's go to my home."

Without waiting for his answer, Toriel began to walk away with the Homunculus in her arms, Shirou having to do a light jog to keep up with her due to the monsters longer legs. They passed through the room were he had fought Flowey(Which was still filled with smoke) without saying a word.

The next room they entered was a long chamber with two sets of stairs at the end, both leading to the same archway. Curiously, there was a considerable carpet of red leaves between the two stairways, but no sign of any trees or bushes to produce said leaves. There were two vines to either side of the archway, but even from across the room Shirou could tell that the vines had the wrong kind of leaf. And besides that, wasn't it summer? Why were leaves falling in the first place?

Toriel continued on without slowing down, not giving Shirou the time to ponder his questions as they entered the next room. In this room was yet another curious, though far more familiar, sight.

"Oh, so that's what happened to you." Shirou walked up to Masamune, pulling it out of the ground where it's blade was buried as Toriel watched in worry. It appeared that it had flown into this room, and cut through four of the size iron plates on the ground as it spun around.

"That used to be a puzzle." Toriel seemed somewhat sad at the damage, but brightened up a moment later. "I suppose that's why the door was open. If it hadn't been open, I wouldn't have heard your call for help."

"Masamune always cut's what it needs to cut. And nothing else." Shirou declared with pride, leaning the curve of the blade over his shoulder. "Deylin told me I could even let a toddler play with it, and they would never hurt themselves!"

Toriel cast a concerned look at him. "That may well be, but I don't think that you should test that theory, my child. Now come on, my home is this way."

They continued on into a room divided by two small streams with little bridges across them. On the opposite wall from the entrance there were three levers, and the odd vine. "My child, my hands are quite full, could you be a dear and pull the levers with the arrows pointing at them?" Toriel asked.

Seeing no harm in it, Shirou nodded and did as she requested, and a wall of spikes that was blocking the exit, which he hadn't noticed until they began moving, sank into the floor.

"Thank you my child." Toriel smiled at him as she made her way through the doorway. On the other side of the doorway was a room that appeared to be empty aside from a training dummy in one corner.

"Good-day, Mr. Dummy." Toriel greeted it to Shirou's confusion. "I'd stop to chat but I'm in a bit of a rush. I'll see you later!"

The next room was rather long, but otherwise had nothing new, at least not at first glance. However after going around a somewhat awkwardly shaped corner, they were confronted by a giant, white frog, who seemed to have a black face on their stomach. The frog glared at him, but backed off when it saw his sword, hopping away.

Around the corner was a pathway over a large pool, fully covered in spikes. "I'm sure that you could solve this puzzle on your own, my child, but since were in a hurry, just grab onto my robs and follow right behind me." Toriel told him, the young magus complying without complaint.

After that the rooms began to blur together, as they came upon puzzle after puzzle, only for Toriel to solve them instantly and carry on without slowing down. When he finally began to pay attention again, he found they were standing in front of a relatively small tree, that seemed to be dead. He noticed that it was surrounded by the same red leaves found through the rest of the ruins.

_'Any time this old tree grows any leaves, the fall off right away.'_ A voice sounded in his head, leading him to look around wildly in an attempt to find the source.

"Come, my child, the house is just ahead now." Toriel walked around the tree, Shirou following right behind her. Sure enough, there was a house. He simply hadn't noticed it because it was made of the same purple bricks as the surrounding walls. It was a squat little house, with small windows and no door to speak of.

They passed through the archway that served as a door, Toriel immediately turning right down the hall. From there Toriel entered the second room on the left, which appeared to be her bedroom, and set the Homunculus on the massive blue double bed in the left far corner of the room.

Turning to Shirou, Toriel spoke. "I'm going to see if there's anything I can do for her. That may take a while, so feel free to explore the house. If your hungry, you're welcome to take whatever you want from the refrigerator. If you want, to sleep, then you may use the room right next to this one. If you find a bathroom, then I meant the other one."

It was at this point that Shirou's body reminded him that he had eaten nothing but nutrient bars(which were in no way filling) for the past three days, with a thunderous rumble coming from his gut. Toriel giggle at this, covering her muzzle with one paw as Shirou blushed. "The kitchen is right past the living room, which is to the left of the doorway." Toriel pointed in the right direction.

Muttering a quick "thank you" Shirou took off down the hallway. It was a small house, so it wasn't hard to find the living room. The hardest part was getting the fridge door open, as the door was quite heavy,and he was still holding Masamune in one hand.

Once he got the fridge door open, he grabbed the first food item he saw, a bundle of five carrots. Walking back into the "Living room". He looked around for a good place to set down Masamune, as it would be awkward to eat with one hand, and decided to stick the legendary sword in with the fire-pokers. That handled, he searched for a place to sit.

He looked back and forth between the chairs at the dinner table and the recliner, before opting to sit in the more comfortable looking recliner. Being made for a creature far larger than the average human, it was a bit difficult to get into, but he managed.

* * *

Toriel walked out of her room with a sigh of exhaustion. It had been several hours since she had gotten home, but there was little progress to be made with the Homunculus.

After the death of her human child, she had studied human biology as best she could, but medical books only rarely fell from the surface, and most of them were damaged before Gerson found them. And even if her medical knowledge was as good as a human doctors, she doubted it would help. Whatever ailed that woman seemed to be entirely supernatural in nature.

There were no physical injuries to speak off, and her soul, while far weaker than a humans, was undamaged. She seemed to be conscious, but she just . . . wasn't doing anything. Toriel had done all she could with her limited knowledge, but that just wasn't very much.

Walking into the living room, she found a sight that warmed her heart. The child (Shirou, she reminded herself, his name was Shirou) had fallen asleep sitting in her arm-chair, a half eaten carrot still dangling from one hand, that had been dyed orange by the root. It was quite cute, really.

With a suppressed giggle, she walked up to the human. She wondered weather she should wake him up or just carry him to the children's bedroom. The question answered itself in the end though, as he woke up as soon as she got to close.

"OH, sorry!" The little boy yawned and stretched. "Do you want to sit down? I'll get up."

"No, no!" Toriel waved one of her hands. "you don't need to get up on my account!"

"I didn't mean to fall asleep anyways . . . " he trailed off with a yawn, sliding out of the chair.

"Well, If you're tired, I did say you could use the other bedroom, didn't I?" Toriel smiled and offered him her paw. "Here, I'll show you the way."

Shirou took her hand and followed along with a yawn.

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**AN: You know what? I'll just end this chapter here. It's been almost 3 weeks, and this has gone on long enough. This chapter was easier to write than the previous ones, but as per ususal, I spent most of my time watching youtube and reading instead of working.**

**Next chapter will be an . . . interlude? I guess were we see what Kiritsugu and my OC's are up to at the moment. Hopefully that will help me keep their names straight in my head.**

**Ok, now for the reviews.**

**Spirito1987: Thank you, for the compliment, I'm really good at planing out fight scenes in my head, but I'm not as confident in my ability to translate them into text. In regards to the third magic and Shirou's knowledge of it, Shirou has had a rather good magical education here, so he knows about most forms of Magecraft and magic, if not how to use them. Not that that came up this chapter. And the third magic(or something like it) will play a large part in the monster's history. If I get that far.**

**1eragon33: Yeah, I don't quite know what I'm going to do with Chara yet, but one things for sure. They are in for one _bumpy_ ride.**

**VolcanicFlare: Mabey they suffer from tunnel vision or something. Really, if you think about it that may be the biggest plot-hole in undertale.**

**The Indominator: First of all, when I read you name I hear an announcer introducing you like a pro-wrestler. Ok, that out of the way, thank you for the compliment. I know full well how poorly the lore's of the two franchises mesh, It's why I didn't start writing this two years ago, but I decided to go through with it. I'm good at figuring out decent way's to mesh lore and power-systems, but this one will be a challenge. I end up double checking the T.M. Wiki every time I discuss anything magic related just to be sure I'm not forgetting anything. Hopefully I can finish this without anything feeling like an ass-pull.**

**OK, and that's it for the Reviews. Until next time!**


	5. On the Road

**AN: Ok, next chapter, before I get to tired!**

**No offence intended to any Germans reading this, I just figured Kiritsugu would be feed up with Germany after all he's been through in it. I mean no personal insult to your country.**

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A large camper Trailer rumbled down the roadway, silver paint gleaming in the sunlight. Complex patterns of crimson and lilac vines and flowers adorned the sides, and the lower sections were coated in mud. An uncommon, but not unexpected sight in the mountains of Germany, especially in the summer.

The contents of said R.V. were anything but natural, however. The first thing one would notice upon entering the vehicle was that the dimensions inside were far larger than should be possible. Despite being only fourteen meters long, the camper hade more space available then an averagely sized house. The walls were covered by fancy wallpaper with patterns similar the the ones that covered the outside, and the floors had a lush, thick carpet covering them. The whole place was filled with a strange, ambient hum.

Inside. one of the passengers was fully taking advantage of all the extra room in order to pace back and forth. The fact that the RV was bouncing down a rocky mountain road going forty kilometre an hour seemed lost on them: completely ignored as they adjusted to every bounce and shift like it was second nature, never so much as stumbling.

"You know, I don't think that Deylin will appreciate you wearing a hole in his floors, Kiritsugu." A voice broke the man out of his trance, causing him to loose his balance as they hit a bump. A hand grabbed unto his arm, steadying him, as the magus caught sight of the speaker.

"Moritz. What have I told you about sneaking up on me?" Kiritsugu snapped at the younger magus, clearly annoyed. Moritz von Einzbern was a man in his early thirties, slight hints of stubble scattered around his chin. Aside from his sugar-brown hair, he looked like a very young Jubstacheit, which Kiritsugu had found more than a little disturbing when he had first met him fourteen years earlier.

"That your likely to shoot me? Yes, I remember that, you've said it dozens of times." He rolled his eye's flippantly. "But really, you must be off your game, old man. Normally I'd never be able to catch you off guard while walking on carpet, especially while wearing wool socks of all things. And I wasn't even trying to begin with!" Moritz complained.

"What are you doing here, Moritz?" Kiritsugu asked with a sigh of resignation.

Moritz placed one hand on his chin and puckered his lips in an over-exaggerated thinking expression. "Hmmmmm . . . what was I doing again? I can't remember!" He said in a cartoon lying tone, before slapping on a cheesy "Aha!" face and holding up one finger. "Oh yes! Now I remember! Were gonna be stopping in about a hour, half hour, something like that. Deylin can't maintain the illusory bounded field for much longer, needs to sleep. Also . . . your pacing in the hall that leads to the bathroom." The younger magus pointed at the door with an image of a toilet painted onto it.

Kiritsugu stood aside as the Alchemist rushed past him into the bathroom, his expression showing he was unimpressed. With a sigh and a shake o his head, Kiritsugu walked down the hall and through a doorway, which for some reason lead to another halway. At the end of this hall, was a large, red curtain, beyond which was the drivers seat.

"How far are we from the Mansion, Cline?" He asked the homunculus behind the wheel as he stepped through the curtain. Cline, out of the three Homunculus that Moritz had created, was the youngest, being only two and a half years old. By comparison, both of his quote unquote "Brothers" were over three years old, with Corry nearing four.

He bore only a slight resemblance to the average Einzbern Homunculi, with long dark brown hair that was streaked through with white.

Like all of his "siblings", Cline was made with a specialization in mind. Specifically, Cline possessed the ability to consciously control hundreds, if not thousands of familiars at once, and yet maintain fine control over each and every one of them. Because of this, he was primary focused on scouting the surrounding area with several flocks of small birds.

Even at the moment he was flying his flocks through the forest for several kilometres around them, keeping their numerous eye's out for danger, or any sign of Kiritsugu's son.

"Were nearly a hundred klicks from the Einzbern now, Kiritsugu." Cline replied in his usual subdued tone. "and before you ask, no, I haven't found any signs of Shirou yet. Are you sure that you told him to come this way if we got separated?"

"Yes, I'm sure." Kiritsugu's shoulder's slumped. "We went over all the escape scenarios a half dozen times. He should be heading in this direction. Are you sure there's no sign of him?"

Cline rolled his eye's. "Kiritsugu, let me be blunt. You taught the boy _too_ well. The only sign of him I've found is that familiar he lost, and that was two days ago. Even if I went over the path he took three times, there's still a good chance I wouldn't notice unless I found a spot he stopped to take a piss or something. You drilled stealth into his head. Really, if he hadn't snipped that golem, they wouldn't have even know he was with us in the first place."

Kirisugu sighed and sat down in the passenger seat, putting his head in his hands. "I know. And I don't know whether to be proud or concerned."

Cline shrugged, taking one hand off the wheel and putting it on the former magus-killers shoulder's. "Look at the bright side, at least we know they don't have him yet. They would have contacted us if they had. We both know that old man Jubstacheit is much better with technology then he let's on. Hell, he got internet installed last year, believe it or not! If they had Shirou, he'd be blaring ultimatums over the radio by now. And I've got ours set up to pick up frequency's on every station."

Kiritsugu closed his eye's, breathed in deeply, and let it out. "Your right." He nodded. "We just need to find him, then we can get out of this damn country."

"Alright Cline, I've told Deylin were almost there." Moritz barged into the room at that exact moment. "and I've gotten Conery and Corry to begin preparing to set up for the boundary field, so just give the signal when we get to . . . Hey! Eye's on the road!" He snapped, having noticed Cline's position, "Were driving right next to a two hundred foot drop you idiot!"

Cline looked over his shoulder at his creator, pursing his lips in an obviously unamused manner. "I am currently controlling over a thousand birds as they fly through thick tangles of branches like it's nothing, do you really think that I'm incapable of holding a conversation and driving at the same time? Besides, I have some birds on the roof keeping an eye out. So I technically have twelve "Eyes on the road."

Moritz inhaled and went to say something, but seemingly thought better of it, shaking his head with a huff. "Alright, fine, you have everything covered. Conery told me to tell you he's almost done modifying those baby mice familiars for you, by they way. They should be done in about an hour, assuming theirs no unexpected interruptions."

Cline huffed. "Took him long enough. He really needs more practice with biology manipulation."

At this point Kiritsugu spoke up in Conery's defence. "Not everyone can spend all of their time making familiar's and mystic codes, Cline. Remember, you and Corry have a lot more free time than him."

Cline shook his head and said nothing, but seemed amused if his expression was any indicator.

* * *

Conery walked into the camper's built in Workshop somewhat apprehensively. Even in spite of having received the permission of the owner, it still felt fundamentally wrong to enter a magus's workshop. Most mages would kill anyone who entered their magical-laboratories, and set up dozens, if not more, defences around them to keep out unwanted intruders. Deylin himself was not exempt from this, and the homunculus was certain that if the dream-magus wasn't currently restraining his workshops defences, he would be reduced to ashes(or worse) a dozen times over by the time he took his second step.

One could identify just from looking at it that Deylin was a far more . . . modern, magus(Though most traditionalist would use far less polite terms). Every flat surface appeared to be some variation of stainless steel, and their were many (currently empty) glass tubes and jars of strange liquid stored along the walls.

Despite the cold utilitarianism of the room, however, there was a certain dream-like ambience to it, with most of the room being somewhat blurred by a strange purple mist, and odd, unnatural looking plant's being scattered around the room at random intervals. Conery could swear some of them were watching him from how the moved.

But the focus of the Homunculi's visit to the workshop lay in the very centre of the room. At first glance, it appeared to be a large, solid chrome, coffin. Further observation revealed that the lid of said coffin was transparent, leaving the padded inside exposed, and the side's were covered in a flowering-vine pattern(A staple of most of Deylin's work). Sitting at a thirty degree angle, Conery could easily see the seemingly sleeping face of Delin Brontenmeyer within.

He couldn't help but take a moment to admire the "Dream Coffin" as Deylin called it. Conery, being made with the intent of being a great teacher of mage-craft, was no slouch when it came to making mystic codes, but in the end was far inferior to his "younger sibling" Cline. And Deylin's work made Cline look like an amateur.

Conery supposed it made sense, even if he and his "brother" were literally made for mage-craft, Deylin had been actively practising it for eight times as long as they had been alive, and had access to the work and teaching's of far more skilled code crafter's then what Moritz could supply to his creations.

Not that that kept him from being jealous of the dream mage. A little jealousy did the artistic soul good, anyway. Right?

Shaking his head, the homunculus-magus walked up to the coffin and rapped his knuckles twice on the glass. "Deylin. We've stopped now. Get up."

Nothing happened for several seconds, and Conery wondered if he should knock again when the dream magus's eyes clenched tighter, before opening them blearily and yawning. Without warning, the top of the coffin began to rise, allowing it's occupant to sit up and stretch.

Deylin was a thin, wiry figure, standing slightly shorter than Conery. His straight hair was a pale ash grey, and reached how to his shoulder's. It framed a rather elfish face, with high cheekbones and an slightly upturned nose. His eye's were a pale blue, like the sky on a cold winter day. He also had rather large ears hidden behind his hair.

Deylin stepped out of the coffin with a groan, legs stiff from a lack of movement. "Thanks, Conery. I . . . just need a minute to work all the kinks out." he began to do a series of leg stretches, followed by jumping-jacks and running in place. Conery said nothing, and just watched as the dream mage did his exercises.

Once the magus finished a minute later, having cracked his neck, back, and a few more things, he turned back to the Homunculus. "Sorry about that," He paused to yawn. "I haven't really move that much in the past few days. I assume you've already set up a boundary field around us, if you're getting me up?"

Conery nodded. "Of course, Master Deylin, I personally saw to it that all precautions were taken. It wouldn't do for you to spend three day's in a false-sleep just to waste it at the last moment, after all."

Deylin nodded, and yawned again before replying. "Thank you for that. While I have faith in Moritz and Cline, to be blunt, you are the best at bounded field creation, at least of our current party." The dream mage patted Conery on the shoulder. "I'm sure that no one will be able to find us if it was you who set it up. Now if you don't mind, my dream trances don't really count as real sleep, and I need to go lie down."

With that, the dream mage walked calmly out the door, the homunculus rushing after him. He didn't want to risk the workshop's defences coming back on before he could get out, after all.

* * *

"Finally," Cline sighed in a satisfied tone, looking over the six by six neat rows of little pink rodents laid out on a tray on the table before him. Normally he preferred to use familiar's made out of adult specimens of the creature in question. This time, however, the familiar's were serving more a glorified tracking devices, rather than the more versatile creations he usually worked with.

To be specific, the lines of infant mice in front of him had been modified to have a sense of smell as precise and powerful as that of a blood-hound. The intention behind this was to have the mice carried around by his flocks of bird familiar's, allowing him to search a far larger area for any signs of Shirou Emiya's scent. The sooner they found the boy, the sooner they could leave the country. Now all he had to do was hand them off to his birds and get to work.

Skidding his chair back and stretching, the homunculus got to his feet and picked up the metal tray the now functional mouse familiar's were on. In doing so, he found himself face to face with Corry, his "older sibling's" deadpan face only an handful of centimetre's away from his own.

Cline jumped and nearly dropped the tray.

Out of the three Homunculi created by Moritz, Corry was easily the largest, and strongest. Standing roughly a hundred and ninety centimetres tall, Corry was surprisingly slender for his size. His facial features were rather androgynous, giving him a "pretty boy" vibe, and his greasy black hair hair was worn long. His eye's were a far more intense red then most, with even his Sclera seeming to be constantly bloodshot.

"Are you finished yet?" Corry asked in a monotone voice, the only change in his expression being a raised eyebrow.

"Corry!" Cline snapped, eye's narrowed angrily, and hand on his racing heart. "Knock before you enter a room! I nearly dropped a few of these familiar's!"

Corry tilted his head to the side in a somewhat cat-like manner. "I was unaware that was necessary. You usually know when I'm coming in on your own."

Cline rolled his eye's at his "sibling". Just because Corry was older than him, didn't mean he was either wiser, or more mature. Probably because his entire brain was hardwired for Combat and not much else.

"Normally I'm inside a proper workshop, or surrounded by familiar's, Corry. Of course I normally know your there. This time, I had neither, and your walk much to quietly for me to hear you. Next time, knock." Cline explained calmly, miming knocking on a door, before shoving past Corry with a huff.

Between their specialization and their lack of social interaction with anyone who wasn't either another Homunculus or their creator, Corry was rather childlike in his interactions, and had a hard time expressing himself. It was far from his fault, but as someone designed to process as much data as possible as quickly as possible, Cline lacked the patience to deal with his "Brother" for long periods of time.

Cline sighed and shook his head. _'I'll need to work on our relationship when this is all over.'_ he resolved with a nod, carrying on down the hall with propose in his steps.

* * *

Cline carefully placed each of the mice in the neck feathers of one of his larger birds, mostly crows. In the past, he had just carried them in the talons, but that had resulted in him loosing a fair number of familiars when other birds tried to steal them, or when they got dropped due to him reflexively relaxing the talons during turbulence.

So, he switched to smaller familiar's who he could hide among the birds feathers. It wasn't as if it was harder to modify the smaller ones in the same way as the adults, after all, and baby mice were arguably easier to get than the adults, if you knew where and when to look.

There were always magical means to hide the mice(and track Shirou, for that matter), but those were a lot more noticeable to another magus than just the Familiar bond was. And of course, he wanted to avoid as much attention as possible, leading to the current solution.

One by one, the birds took off, Cline making slight adjustments to their flight or the position of the mice as necessary for stability's sake. Watching as the last one took off with a nod and a pleased smile, the Homunculus turned around and entered the Camper.

* * *

Kiritsugu's face slumped into the palm of his hand, an exhausted sigh slipping through his lips as he looked over the checker's board laid on the table out before him. Across the table from him, Moritz Von Einzbern seemed to be having a panic attack, eye's darting wildly from one piece to another, trying to find a way to achieve victory(or at least fight back.)

That seemed to be a lost cause, however, as Kiritsugu, who was currently playing as black, had claimed all but three of Moritz own pieces over the past few minutes, losing only one of his own in the process.

This was a duel failure on Moritz's part, as not only was he losing the game, but his actual end-goal, keeping Kiritsugu's mind entertained(and thus not on his missing child), seemed further out of reach with each move he made. Maybe challenging the Magus killer to a strategy game was a bad idea?

Finally, he decided on a move . . . only for Kiritsugu to immediately king another of his piece's. "DAMN IT!" Moritz screamed, flopping back into his chair and throwing a hand over his eyes with a pained moan. "I thought you said that you hadn't played this game in years?"

"I haven't," Kiritsugu confirmed with a roll of his eye's. "You just aren't that good at this game."

"I'll have you know that I'm very good, I've never lost to Corry before!" Moritz proclaimed as he shot up with an angry fire in his eyes.

"Yes, I can see that." Kiritsugu droned out in an almost insultingly bored tone. "Did you ever consider that Corry just isn't that good a player himself? You didn't exactly build him with strategic skill in mind."

Moritz expression resembled a suffocating fish for the next few seconds, mouth opening and closing and eye's bugged out. By the time he found his voice Kiritsugu had managed to count all the teeth in his jaw, and confirmed that his wisdom teeth hadn't been removed.

"I'll have you know that Corry is a brilliant strategist!" Moritz spat, slamming his hand onto the table so hard the pieces flew all over the place. "You saw how he was back at the mansion! He waded through the battle like . . . like the whole battlefield was a field of daisies! He steared one enemy into another, deflected spells back at their caster's, and tore through all resistance like tissue paper!"

"Yes, I'll admit that he's quite good in the heat of the moment." Kiritsugu agreed. "But that was all raw, pre-programmed instinct. He didn't need to think or plan ahead, just react."

Moritz, seemed to have more to say, game completely forgotten, when the object of their discussion silently entered the sitting room through the door on Kiritsugu's left.

"Conery told me to come find you." he explained before falling silent, eye's focused on the air above Kiritsugu's head. "He said Illya's awake.

Immediately the former magus killer was on his feet, all but running out the door before Moritz had even gotten a chance to full absorb what his creation had said.

Looking from the empty chair accross from him and the open doorway, he made the connection to what had happened and shot to his feet with an indignant cry of, "Hey! Wait for me!"

Even with the expanded inside, Deylin's camper was still only about fifty meters from one end to the other, so it was only a matter of seconds. Really, it was an impressive showing of speed from a man who, by the best estimates Moritz could make, had less than two years left to live.

Upon reaching the door to the room, Kiritsugu skidded to a stop, grab the handle, and threw himself inside lake a man possessed, leaving the door ajar behind him.

Moritz arrived a few seconds later, Corry trailing right behind him, and made to follow Kiritsugu in, only to be cut off at the doorway by Conery.

"What happened? Corry said Illya's awake? How is she, let me see!" Moritz demanded of his "middle child" trying to go around him into the room, only to be blocked by the Homunculus.

"I think . . . we should leave them alone for a while." Conery said slowly, looking over his shoulder as he did so.

Moritz paused for a moment, and thought, before trying to shove past again. "I'm the Homunculus expert here, I should give her another look over now that's she's awake! She could be . . . "

Conery grabbed his creator, threw him over his shoulder, and began to walk away with him. "Were giving them at least half an hour alone." This time their was no room for argument in the Homunculi's tone. "Come on, Corry, were going to the lounge."

* * *

**AN: I wanted to make this longer, but I figure that it's been long enough since my last chapter. There's more I wasn't to show, but that can wait for a later chapter. I'll probably also do character pages for all the OC's some time in the future.**

**Actually, I got something like half of this chapter written in the first five or so days after the last one, and was pretty confident it would only take three more days to finish. Then my cat died. We knew he was going out, but it still hit me hard, didn't sleep the following night, threw off my sleep schedule and, well, you get the picture.**

**After that, the rest of this did not want to come out, and I've been struggling to focus on writing it. The fact that my mind had been hardwired Hunter x Hunter the past few days hasn't helped. Still, I think this chapter is a bit better than the previous ones, if only slightly.**

**Well, until next time!**


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